Latest on Australian Mandatory Helmet Law propaganda

On 16/2/19 6:39 pm, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 16:36:50 +1100, James
wrote:

On 16/2/19 4:27 am, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, February 15, 2019 at 6:19:00 AM UTC-8, news18 wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:39:56 +1100, James wrote:

A pack of rabid Mandatory Helmet Law zealots in Australia
(Raphael Grzebieta, Jake Olivier (former USian), and some other
clown who's name eludes me), recently published a paper that
looks at the ratio of cycling fatalities per head of population
in comparison with pedestrian fatalities per head of population,
before and after MHL-Day (1990-91).

They claim some 36% decline in cycling fatalities that are a
direct result of the MHL protecting cyclists from death.

They fail to acknowledge *any* reduction in participation due to
the MHL putting people off riding a bike, and IIRC they suggest
there is no good evidence that MHL puts people off riding a
bike.


How can both studies be correct?

Any paper bsed on Australian data can only show corelation and not
causation. The quacks screamed for MHL but failed to collect any
data that enabled them to show that helmets were the reason for the
reduction in cycling fatalities. I've always enjoyed throwing that
factoid in the face of any doctor that sprouts the MHL bleat.

In any case, medical professionals are responsible for far more
fatalities in Australia each year. A recent article stated you'd be
lucky to survive 6 months after surgery in Australia.

From a biomechanical standpoint, helmets prevent or reduce certain
injuries.

Yet the second study I posted a link to, if you examine the numbers,
shows that the number of cyclists with a head injury of any kind, from
either group, is very close to 30%. That means either the helmet
wearers are taking more risks and are still as likely to hurt their
head, or the helmet isn't doing much of anything.

Perhaps extra risk taking by those who chose to wear a helmet is the
reason. I guess forcing people who would not volunteer to wear a
helmet, may either stop them from cycling or make them a fraction less
likely to hurt their head, or make them take similar risks to the
voluntary helmet wearers and they are back to 30% risk of a head injury ;-)

http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com...d-helmets.html

"in the decade that was the 1950s, 8 pro riders were killed while
racing. In the ten years that followed, the 1960s, 4 lost their lives;
another 4 during the 1970s, and 5 in the 1980s. 3 died in pro races in
the 1990s.

However, in the first decade of the New Millennium, the 2000s, 10
professional cyclists died during completion. Two have died already in
this decade when we are only half way through the second year. What
happened? Helmets were made mandatory in 2003 to protect riders."


Nice!

--
JS

On 16/2/19 6:16 am, wrote:

The paper I wrote showed no measurable difference between pedestrian
fatalities and cycling fatalities before and after the advent of
helmets. And practically everyone here started wearing helmets. I
think that you can still find this one by searching Tom Kunich and
bicycle safety helmets.


Thanks Tom. I found it.

--
JS

On 2/16/2019 6:48 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 3:10:16 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/16/2019 1:51 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 1:04:33 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/16/2019 11:47 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, February 15, 2019 at 11:19:28 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 5:36:56 AM UTC, James wrote:

Yet the second study I posted a link to, if you examine the numbers,
shows that the number of cyclists with a head injury of any kind, from
either group, is very close to 30%. That means either the helmet
wearers are taking more risks and are still as likely to hurt their
head, or the helmet isn't doing much of anything.

An inconclusive study would suggest to me that it was honestly done.

Perhaps extra risk taking by those who chose to wear a helmet is the
reason. I guess forcing people who would not volunteer to wear a
helmet, may either stop them from cycling or make them a fraction less
likely to hurt their head, or make them take similar risks to the
voluntary helmet wearers and they are back to 30% risk of a head injury ;-)

Considering the size of the existing studies (which by themselves makes such studies suspect and confusing), and the 3000+ respondents you would need for a proper study with control groups, and the likely cost, I'll take a modest bet on "We won't know in our lifetime."

My cohort has been studied. https://www.scribd.com/doc/42246724/...e-injury-Study

Ah yes. That was the study where they recruited subjects, then sent them
monthly emails asking "Did you hurt yourself in any way with your bike
last month?" so they would record each and every tiny injury, even the
ones that would naturally be forgotten in a few weeks.

They defined an "injury" as any tiny scratch or bump. They defined one
as "serious" if the victim had shown it to any medical person at all. In
other words, if someone asked the company nurse for a band-aid, the
injury became "serious."

It's a propaganda piece for ever more segregated bike chutes.

Snipped

- Frank Krygowski

Source for those comments please?

The paper itself.

Soon after the publication, there was an online transcript of an
interview with author Lambert, IIRC, in which he admitted that their
definition of "serious traumatic event" included many injuries that
nobody would consider serious, because they didn't mean that a person
went to ER. The victim just had to show it to some medical person. I
should have bookmarked that article, but didn't. Still, reading the
article critically should make the rest of my remarks clear.

And BTW, their "Danger! Danger!" take on bicycle commuting is belied by
their own figures. It works out to 6667 miles between any injury at all,
even tiny ones. And it works out to 25,600 miles between incidents they
label "serious" - that is, including asking a nurse for a band-aid.


--
- Frank Krygowski

But where is that online paper now? You always ask 4 links 2 articles.

??? It's up above in Jay's post!

Here, I'll copy and past from directly above, to save you the labor of
rolling your mouse wheel:
"My cohort has been studied.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/42246724/...e-injury-Study "

Some people ride far less miles and have a spill or other accident.

sigh Yes. Those figures were what's known as "averages," or more
technically as "mean values." It should be obvious they're not definite
hard numbers applied to each individual. If they were, we could tell
someone "You've ridden 25,590 miles. You must never ride again."

Now if you'd like to discuss mean values, normal distributions,
associated probabilities etc. I can do that; just ask. But the gist of
it is, despite their pro-path propaganda, riding a bike is not very
dangerous.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:46:10 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

I suspect that it is a matter of the Medical Profession not wanting to
appear to be against anything. If you ask a doctor here whether
drinking a tea made from rhino horn extract will help your virility he
will say something like, "well... it might" and given the placebo
effect it might. When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TdeF he was
descending and hit a cement post head first, at probably speeds
approaching 60 MPH, it was said that an attending doctor commented
that wearing a helmet might have saved him...

Subsequently, Michel Disteldorf, the French doctor who examined
Casartelli's body on behalf of the coroner, that had Casartelli been
wearing a hard helmet "some injuries might have been avoided".

Note the term "might have" just as rhino horn tea "might" help your
erectile dysfunction.

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

--
Cheers,
John B.

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 5:03:37 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:46:10 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

I suspect that it is a matter of the Medical Profession not wanting to
appear to be against anything. If you ask a doctor here whether
drinking a tea made from rhino horn extract will help your virility he
will say something like, "well... it might" and given the placebo
effect it might. When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TdeF he was
descending and hit a cement post head first, at probably speeds
approaching 60 MPH, it was said that an attending doctor commented
that wearing a helmet might have saved him...

Subsequently, Michel Disteldorf, the French doctor who examined
Casartelli's body on behalf of the coroner, that had Casartelli been
wearing a hard helmet "some injuries might have been avoided".

Note the term "might have" just as rhino horn tea "might" help your
erectile dysfunction.

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

Helmets do prevent certain injuries that I've had -- and that my wife has had. She was knocked out and got a broken arm in a big regional race and got crashed in an Oregon race and cut her face. Always ask for the plastic surgeon. She avoided scalp injury. I've avoided scalp injury and have the scars stopping at my helmet line to prove it. I rode the OSU criterium a million years ago, and a guy launched into a stay cable holding up a telephone pole. It split his helmet in half, and he walked around the course for the rest of the race with the two halves hanging around his shoulder. People whack their heads with regularity in slippery early season races. I've ruined probably four helmets and a ski helmet, which represented my worst head injury. I still don't remember what happened. My face looked like I was in a prize fight, and I can only guess what shape my head would have been in without a helmet. Helmets are a reasonable choice for many.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 2:46:16 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains.. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

Well, there's more to the issue than "serious brain injury." Head and scalp injury, including depressed skull fracture can be reduced or avoided with a helmet. As an ED doctor, I would like to see that.

I didn't see a ton of bicycle accidents as an ambulance driver, but I did see a ton of motorcycle accidents. Yes, different issues, but I saw lots of heads that look like they went through cheese graters. And to be fair, lots of bodies, too. A helmet would have at least allowed for an open casket funeral.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:42:00 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/16/2019 1:36 PM, wrote:


In California it appears to be almost entirely due to no enforcement of traffic laws by autos around bicycles. I have been absolutely astonished that there is no sort of traffic enforcement 99% of the time. When someone runs a stoplight directly in front of a cop 5 seconds after the light has changed and has sped up so that he is going 50% above the speed limit MAYBE the cop might pull him over. But it is actually a toss-up. I think when they are going back to get off duty they simply don't care what is going on in front of them.

OTOH, I once saw a guy on a bike riding downhill on the wrong side of
the road. At a double four lane intersection with turn lanes, he rolled
through the light at about 15 mph, crossing to the right side diagonally
across the center of the intersection. In doing so he passed directly in
front of a patrol car waiting in the left turn lane.

No response from the cops at all, from what I could see.

(Oh, and they were pointed away from the police station, so not heading
off duty.)

--
- Frank Krygowski

Is that supposed to be a "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" comment? I don't care who is driving dangerously - at the very lease a citation is warranted.

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 12:16:15 PM UTC-8, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/16/2019 11:16 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 3:52:01 AM UTC-8, news18 wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2019 09:27:26 -0800, jbeattie wrote:

On Friday, February 15, 2019 at 6:19:00 AM UTC-8, news18 wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:39:56 +1100, James wrote:

A pack of rabid Mandatory Helmet Law zealots in Australia (Raphael
Grzebieta, Jake Olivier (former USian), and some other clown who's
name eludes me), recently published a paper that looks at the ratio
of cycling fatalities per head of population in comparison with
pedestrian fatalities per head of population, before and after
MHL-Day (1990-91).

They claim some 36% decline in cycling fatalities that are a direct
result of the MHL protecting cyclists from death.

They fail to acknowledge *any* reduction in participation due to the
MHL putting people off riding a bike, and IIRC they suggest there is
no good evidence that MHL puts people off riding a bike.


How can both studies be correct?

Any paper bsed on Australian data can only show corelation and not
causation. The quacks screamed for MHL but failed to collect any data
that enabled them to show that helmets were the reason for the
reduction in cycling fatalities. I've always enjoyed throwing that
factoid in the face of any doctor that sprouts the MHL bleat.

In any case, medical professionals are responsible for far more
fatalities in Australia each year. A recent article stated you'd be
lucky to survive 6 months after surgery in Australia.

From a biomechanical standpoint, helmets prevent or reduce certain
injuries. Mandating helmet use is a permissible legislative choice.
Policy in Oregon is controlled in large part by voters in Portland,
which by size has the highest bicycle mode share of any city in the US,
and yet Oregon does not have a MHL for adults. This is because efforts
have been turned back by reasonable people appearing at legislative
committee meetings, submitting exhibits and doing the hard work
associated with supporting or opposing legislation.

There was no such chance, the quackery collective demanded it hard and
fast and we had it despite clearly pointing out the lack of evidence..

Your
counter-bleating does nothing to promote your cause, nor does
criticizing doctors who are understandably concerned with individual
patient outcomes and not population studies.

Wrong, the big Phama does population studies and uses the data they
generate to wage a corrupt PR program on the quackery, who line up for
the trinkets and other promo stuff. Suppossedly they are not allowed to
offer"rewards" to the quackery, but all you need to do is look around and
quacks office to see the "gimmicks" all promoting big pharma products.

One of my gigs was to support the Australian Medical Major register who
earned big bickies selling the names and addresses to big pharma promo
campaigns. This included a significant section to deal with complaints
from quacks who didn't get their trinket. Thed joke at the time was the
ENT speciallist who didn't get a free speculum like his gyno mate next
door.

They see a massive scalp
wound and naturally conclude that a semi-rigid head covering would have
helped.

No, they have been taught that mantra and follow it if they want to
obtain their registration. Trainee doctors are assessed on their ability
to see a patient, assess them and write a prescription all within 20
mintes. Woe betide them if they tke longer, even after they are
registered and practising.

An ED physician has no profit motive for recommending a helmet. BTW, the child MHL in Oregon was sponsored by soccer moms and a couple of Kaiser nurses. No BIG HELMET conspiracy. I have not seen any doctors with Giro or POC branded stethoscopes.

I don't want a MHL, but every time I hear the complaining and the level
of upset it causes, it reminds me of a patient dying of heart failure
who is complaining about an unsightly mole.

Shrug, you have to die of something and failure to accept that that is
your lot is just going to lave your family poor and destitute as the
quacks as so log as you have money, there are plenty of quacks who wll
sell you some magic pill.


There are so many other
problems we should be addressing, mostly unrelated bicycles and helmets.

But that doesn't mean we should drop the guard on that area. Haven't you
noticed that the arsehole never give up their chance to rip the general
populaton off.

Like I said, you go to the legislature and oppose the MHL. The constituencies promoting helmets are usually well-intended moms and health-care workers who, like I said, are more concerned with individual patient outcomes than population needs or civil liberties. I've met and talked to these people. They can be shrill, but I don't get any sense of a profit motive.

You're looking only at the tip of the iceberg.

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups -- come up with a uniform law, find sympathetic legislators to introduce it in every state and then get made-up, sympathetic sounding groups to show up at the committee meetings and to send in comments and exhibits.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy. You are perfectly free to oppose kid-MHLs and make children in Ohio less safe. Do you want to hurt kids? Are you FOR killing children? "Frank Krygowski. He want's your children dead. [this message paid for by True American Mothers for Safe Children, Inc.]" You will never be mayor of your community.

-- Jay Beattie.

At what point in time did you get the idea that you could force ME to do your will simply by having a voting majority?

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 2:26:58 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 6:39:15 PM UTC, wrote:
On Friday, February 15, 2019 at 11:11:46 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
Thanks Jay, thanks Jeff. Just checking to see if anyone is awake. Without you guys, I'd be wrong twice a day.

My suggestion still stands.

Andre Jute
Amazing grace

Come on Andre - according to Zen and Newsie you are wrong by definition.. These are the two guys that were criticizing my programming skills when neither is a programmer. What is in the minds of people like these?

I've always believed that one cannot know everything, and that asking makes you a new friend. Today there is so much information that one cannot remember everything, even if simply because your entire life would be consumed by filing irrelevances in your memory palace.

according to Zen and Newsie you are wrong by definition.

Zen and Newsie (heh-heh) are both the wannabe writer, copyright thief and plagiarist Peter Howard, who has spent getting on for two decades stalking me and gainsaying everything I say. Apparently he thinks hiding behind multiple net handles -- there are more -- raises his net profile. Not worth wasting much time on such a loser. All the same, I waste no experience, so I got a painting out of all his effort. See
http://web.archive.org/web/201505300.../archives/4913
One wonders if the wretched little man even grasps how rude the other members of RBT will perceive his undeclared use of so many anonymous hiding places.

As for Frank Krygowski, the man is an anti-social thug and liar without the grace to admit when he makes a mistake -- it's common for railroad minds to believe they are always right -- and who refuses to apologise when offered the opportunity. I doubt such a slow learner even understands why I kick him in his smug kisser every time I see him.

These are the two guys that were criticizing my programming skills when neither is a programmer. What is in the minds of people like these?

A great big void of narcissistic Id. This clown Howard, and the rest of the clowns, appear to believe that anyone who can operate a keyboard can be a writer or a programmer. I've been in the applied and fine arts since I was 13, but I have yet to meet such allrounders as these asses believe themselves to be.

Andre Jute
Polymath

I should have guessed as much - the sheer lack of intellect plainly showed them to be of one mind. While the others here lined up to play pattycake with them I certainly was entirely unimpressed with what most of the members here have become.

Frank is Mr. Can't Get It Up which you would think strange from a person who told us he was a teacher. Why would he behave as a petulant child?

Finally Jay came clean that he isn't Dr. Strange anymore but only tries to ride fast to ride with his son. He is a backslider with ultimately leftist politics which I thought I described accurately as someone that lives high on the hill and while driving to work neither looks left nor right. So he doesn't see the absolute failure of leftism and will continue his occasional fits of balderdash such as a majority of voters should have the right to take rights away from other simply by limiting themselves in the same manner..

On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:36:01 -0800 (PST), jbeattie
wrote:

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 2:46:16 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

Well, there's more to the issue than "serious brain injury." Head and scalp injury, including depressed skull fracture can be reduced or avoided with a helmet. As an ED doctor, I would like to see that.

I didn't see a ton of bicycle accidents as an ambulance driver, but I did see a ton of motorcycle accidents. Yes, different issues, but I saw lots of heads that look like they went through cheese graters. And to be fair, lots of bodies, too. A helmet would have at least allowed for an open casket funeral.

-- Jay Beattie.

I like that. Perhaps the new battle cry of the pro-helmet crowds.

"Mothers and Fathers! Assure your child an open casket funeral! Buy a
bicycle helmet TODAY!"

--
Cheers,
John B.